Jim Crockarell, head of Madison Equities, has been busy. His company recently closed on the purchase of a St. Paul office tower, and Crockarell, one of the largest building owners in downtown St. Paul, is also working on converting several other office properties into apartments. Madison Equities closed Thursday on the purchase of the 16-story Alliance Bank Center. The deal was worth $18.25 million. The building is located at 55 E. 5th Street and includes a 560-stall above ground parking garage with a parking bridge that crosses Cedar Street. All 200,000 square feet of the office space is leased with the building’s major tenants being Alliance Bank and the Redpath and Co. accounting firm. The building includes 100,000 square feet of retail space with some smaller footprint space available on the skyway level. The building had been owned by real estate investors Jim Kelly and Dave Brooks, who bought the property for $8.2 million in 2014 and invested in it. It was a fair price, Crockarell said, adding that the building is close to several other Madison Equities properties which made the sale efficient from a management perspective. Bryan Larson with Madison Equities represented both Crockarell and the sellers in the transaction. Two blocks down at the Degree of Honor Building, located on the corner of 4th and Cedar streets, construction is scheduled to begin next month to convert the approximately 100,000-square-foot office building into a 77-unit, market-rate apartment complex. “It’s really going to be the rebirth of a great… [Read full story]